Optical character recognition is the conversion of characters (e.g., in a scanned image or handwritten letters/symbols input to a touch screen) into text (e.g., machine coded text). Optical character recognition (OCR) technology is typically restricted to one-to-one correlation with alphanumeric characters and in some cases basic geometric shapes. OCR technology has attempted to allow handwriting, e.g., on a touch screen, as an alternative to keyboard input. Because typing is faster than handwriting, the trend has been to translate pen input like keyboard input, e.g., by individual characters and words.
Shorthand, for its part, is an abbreviated or symbolic writing that speeds or abbreviates longhand writing. Originally, shorthand was developed as a faster way to write without losing any important information.